Information management systems for managing handwritten information are known; see e.g. US 2003/0061188, US 2003/046256 and US 2002/0091711. In these systems an electronic pen records pen strokes made on a base provided with a position code which codes a plurality of absolute positions on the base. The pen records the pen strokes by imaging the position code at the tip of the pen and decoding the coded positions so that a sequence of positions reflecting the pen movement is obtained.
The position code on each base is a subset of a much larger abstract position code. Thus, different bases may be provided with different subsets of the overall position code. Also, different processing rules may be associated with different subsets of the position code, thereby creating an information management system where the processing of the recorded information depends on which base the information is recorded from.
The position code proposed in the above information management systems comprises a very large number of simple symbols of substantially similar appearance. The position code does not include any information about the processing of the recorded pen strokes. It exclusively codes position information. From a flexibility and printability perspective, this approach is highly beneficial. However, it may require that other units in the system possess processing and routing information related to the different subsets of the overall position code and that these units are available when needed. Alternatively, a user may need to provide processing and routing information.
In an information management system of the above-referenced type, the pen may store information about the subdivision of the overall position code and processing rules associated with different subsets of the position code. Furthermore, an intermediary server, to which information recorded by the pen is transmitted, may have a database linking subsets of the position code with addresses to different application servers which may be the intended recipients of the pen strokes recorded from different bases. Finally, the different application servers may store information about the different bases enabling them to process the received information in the intended way.
In some situations it would be preferable if the processing and/or routing information could be embedded in the base so that other parts of the system do not need to store this information.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,864,880 discloses a product having a writing area which is provided with a position-coding pattern for recording handwritten information and an address area which is provided with an address-coding pattern which codes an address to which the handwritten information is to be sent.
US 2003/0066896 discloses that further information can be coded in a position code, which comprises a plurality of marks having a first parameter which varies for the coding of position information, by varying a second independent parameter of the marks for coding of the further information. The first parameter could for instance be the location of the mark and the second parameter the size of the mark. The position code is divided into cells for coding of the further information. Each cell comprises a predetermined number of marks. The suggested cell size is 2*2 marks. With this cell size, the pen will always see at least one complete cell within its field of view. However, this cell size may not be sufficient to code e.g. explicit processing and/or routing information. For instance, the Internet Protocol version 4 uses a 32 bit addressing scheme. Another drawback may be that the system requires addition of an algorithm for detection of the second independent parameter used for coding the further information.